utside the falling snow collects on the thatched roof of the farm-house in a thick loaf. Its silent weight stills any noises of the winter evening in Japan's countryside under a layer of white. Inside the century-old house a single light glows in a cramped room off the kitchen. It illuminates an area cluttered with books, ceramic containers of brushes and scrolls of various sizes, some wrapped tightly, others unrolled to reveal broad kanji characters splashed in stark black across the linen white expanse of paper. Sitting on the floor, his grey hair brushed back from his eyes, the calligrapher is occupied grinding a chunk of hardened charcoal into a stone well in front of him. Mixed with water, the powdery ground black will collect in the depression of the inkstone in an ebony pool. When there's enough. it will be sopped up with a round badger-hair brush so thick it looks like a housepainter's tool, to be dashed upon a blank scroll in the form of a single, bold character that reads "Dream." When it is finished, signed and fixed with a seal of cinnabar, the scroll will end up with an art dealer in Kyoto. There, it will fetch a price, though the calligrapher would be loathe to discuss it, equivalent to the monthly salary of many of that city's top executives.

As the calligrapher continues to prepare his ink, miles away a woman is immersed in her own creation. Her kimono arranged in flowing folds, she sits with flawless posture on the tatami of a chashitsu, a rustic tea house, where a squat, cast-iron pot at her side has begun to hiss over a hearth concealed in the floor. It is the beginning of the koicha demae, the most formal and precise convention of chado, the Way of tea. She transfers the dark green tea powder into a roughly glazed bowl, and when the water's at a bubbling boil, will scoop a long, delicate bamboo dipper into the pot and, with unselfconscious grace and economy of movement, pour it into the bowl. Then the concoction is stirred in a rhythmic, pellucid motion with a finely ribbed bamboo whisk. From far off comes the low moan of a jet passing across the starry sky, a reminder that, while the Way of tea has its roots in the 16th century, it is being conducted in a world of instant this and convenient that. But the sounds of modernity have no effect on the tea mistress. Her movements continue, a timeless ballet of composure and self-discipline.

It is a more dramatic and dynamic sort of ballet that unfolds not far away, on the tatami mats of an aikido dojo in downtown Tokyo. The throws, pins, and joint locks of the martial way of aikido occur in a blur of action. In practice sessions such as these, a designated attacker rushes in, only to find that his opponent has pivoted and stepped behind him, catching a wrist or arm as he goes and using it as a fulcrum to whirl him head over heels. In training confrontations elsewhere on the mats, the opponent's aggression is caught, then reversed, and he's flung away using his own momentum to land lightly, in a ball, rolling over and coming to his feet to attack again. Very soon, in spite of the fact that the dojo windows are fully open to the December night, the air inside grows heavy and warm, and perspiration freckles out profusely on the faces of the practitioners. It looks deceptively gentle from a distance, but before the two-hour session is over, there will be those who have incurred sprained wrists and ankles and numerous bruises, along with an aching, but somehow refreshing weariness that invigorates the aikidoka in a way they will seek to attain again and again for the rest of their lives.